Step 1:

Identify your ideal customer

If you’ve never taken a step back and really thought about your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) – or if you haven’t done so lately – then you should. Has your ideal customer changed? Are you sure?

Knowing when to reach out – and how

In all likelihood, the traits that make up your ICP will have undergone a significant shift in recent years, and it’s
going to be important to gain a thorough understanding of that shift if your nurture strategy is to be a success.

Knowing the ideal times and methods to reach out to your prospects will be vital too – and they’re also likely to have changed substantially. Perhaps the prospect’s current preferred comms channels aren’t those they frequented in the past. Perhaps their decision-making processes have evolved. Perhaps a whole new potential market has opened up.

It’s going to be crucial to find out.

Buying into their buying teams

Having pinpointed your ideal customer at an account level, you’ll also need to establish and understand the wants and requirements of the buying teams within those accounts – their personalities and habits too.

Continuously evolving and growing, the average B2B buying team now comprises 20 people or more; half from IT backgrounds and half from various lines of business such as finance, marketing, and increasingly, HR.

Each of these teams and people will have different priorities and so will need different information during the decision-making process. All this will require careful consideration when structuring your nurture programme. Fail to cater for these differing agendas and your nurture track will likely fail too.

Closing the generation gap

Buying teams are also getting younger – today's decision-making teams are made up of around 75% digital natives (75% for hardware – 72% software²).

This should influence your targeting and content strategies, as these executives commonly research and interact with suppliers and vendors in a very different manner to their predecessors. This new generation of decision-maker expects slick, high-quality user experiences, genuine personalisation, digital-first interactions, and less formal comms.

Suitable diligence and attention to detail is therefore an absolute must when it comes to nurturing them.

These decision makers want, for example, the ability to customise the information they receive from you to their own needs. Build in the right questions and opportunities for them to do so, and you’ll deliver better, more relevant experiences, reduce opt-outs and ultimately, drive up conversions.

Invaluable insight

Before you start developing your lead nurturing content and sales pitches, be sure to actually speak with your audiences. Book meetings in with loyal clients. Comment on LinkedIn posts. Conduct surveys. Direct feedback with potential leads and existing clients can allow you to glean invaluable insights to help build your nurturing and overall lead engagement strategy.”

Victoria Albert, VP of Marketing at INFUSEmedia